Dawn Before the Rest of the World
by Polly Lynn
Summary: "He is a fixed point. Steady and unwavering. But he's afraid, too. He's afraid, and so is she and that feels less and less like a reason not to dream." A TARDIS-verse 2-shot set after "A Dance With Death" (4 x 18). References to Lucky Stiff as well (3 x15). See my bio for info on the TARDIS-verse. It's not a Dr. Who crossover or any kind of crossover. NOW COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

Title: Dawn Before the Rest of the World

W/C: ~4400, this chapter

Rating: T

Summary: "He is a fixed point. Steady and unwavering. But he's afraid, too. He's afraid, and so is she and that feels less and less like a reason not to dream."

Episodes: A TARDIS-verse set after "A Dance With Death" (4 x 18). References to Lucky Stiff as well (3 x15). See my bio for info on the TARDIS-verse. It's not a Dr. Who crossover or any kind of crossover.

A/N: This one has been scary to write. It's the last season 4 episode before 47 seconds and I can't make this series coexist with the next few episodes. But Brain insists on writing the last thing it can in Season 4, even though it gives us both a sad. This will have two chapters. I'm just about finished with the second and it should be up no later than tomorrow morning.

* * *

Yes: I am a dreamer.

For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight,

and his punishment is that he sees

the dawn before the rest of the world."

- Oscar Wilde

* * *

It's getting harder all the time.

The end of every day, especially. It's harder to remember when he helps her into her coat and she tries not to shiver. When he runs his fingers through her hair and shakes it loose from her collar, it's hard to remember why that's where it ends. Why she doesn't step closer still and he doesn't rest an arm over her shoulders. Why they don't shelter each other from the March wind while the last pink of the lengthening days fades from the sky.

It's harder at the end of every day to remember when the corner comes up all too soon why it is that he turns one way and she turns the other when it's not what either of them wants. When the same question is in his eyes every time, and she wants so badly to answer it. When _'Till tomorrow _sounds like far too long from right now and _Night _is blank and unsatisfying on her tongue.

It's harder to remember why her apartment feels empty these days. Why she's restless and something close to lonely. Why she's not relieved when she drags herself through the door at the end of every day and there's no one there wanting anything from her. Why the weekends seem too long and why she watches the sluggish clock every Sunday night.

She has to remind herself why, and that's getting harder. It sounds less convincing every time she tells herself that she's not ready. That what she wants belongs to some future self. What they both want.

It's getting harder to explain to herself. When she looks up from her book or the cutting board to say something and he's not there. He's not right there across from her, and it just seems stupid. It seems stupid that he's not right there, busying his hands with a glass of wine or a book of his own propped up on his knee while he thinks about it. That he's not listening intently and answering back with a goofy smile or a wicked one or something unexpectedly serious.

It's getting harder to remember why she's alone and he's alone. Why it is they're not doing this.

But it's getting easier, too. Easier to let herself dream. To picture what it would be like to be together. To be with him in daylight. Easier to imagine what it would be like to have more than . . . _this_.

_More than that, _she corrects herself. She snatches her hand back before her fingers land on the phone. Before she's sliding and tapping and grinning when it buzzes back at her right away. Almost always right away.

They have that, and it's good. They have the middle of the night. The fast-asleep hum of city streets and the solidity of chipped diner tables. They have wandering conversations. They have the stories they tell each other and half admissions that inch them onward toward the future. They have stolen kisses and the promise of more when she's ready.

They have all of that, and she tells herself she's content. With the things she learns about him and the things she lets him see by streetlight and the buzz of neon. With the row of buttons lined up on her dresser like stepping stones. Like a path to him in daylight.

She tells herself that she's content with the memory of their fingers twining together and the ghost of his lips on hers. With the two of them on her doorstep and the demanding press of his body against hers. Minutes at a time that feel like hours. Like the future.

She tells herself she's content with it, and she is.

But it's getting easier to want more. Easier to dream.

It's getting easier to admit that Burke might be right. That the fear will never leave her entirely. That she can't wait for that. That she shouldn't make him. She shouldn't make either of them wait for that, when fear is normal and it's not the only thing. It's getting easier to believe that the fear isn't the biggest part of what she feels anymore. It hasn't been for a while.

There's anticipation mixed in with the stark, staring terror. There's eagerness and want and fizzing desire. A steadily building bedrock. Something she's been making all these months. Something they've been making together in the middle of the night. Something they've been building together for years.

And it's getting easier to believe that everyone wonders. Everyone is unsure. Every time they take that leap, everyone is afraid.

_He's_ afraid.

She loses that sometimes. She loses sight of it when she feels like she's drowning in her own issues.

Sometimes it's easier to think of him last year. Of them last year. When he was cocky and petulant and pushing more than a little because he could. When, again and again, she stepped right up to him and them and everything and turned away every time because she had to. Because she could. She could tell herself that he wasn't serious. It wasn't real to him. Because there she was, safe on the other side of Josh and the fact that she owed it to him to try.

Sometimes it's easier to think about last year, and sometimes it's harder.

Because he was serious then and he's serious now. It was real then and it's real now. He was afraid then and he's afraid now.

He is a fixed point. Steady and unwavering.

But he's afraid, too. He's afraid, and so is she and that feels less and less like a reason not to dream.

* * *

He wishes the book were terrible. He _kind of_ wishes that.

It's not good. Not yet, anyway, and that's the problem. Something whispers _not yet _every time he's ready to put it aside.

It's one of the problems. He suspects that he might be the other. That it's not the pages that are whispering, it's him and the things he wants to be true. The things he wants to be possible.

He thinks that if this had come up some other time, he'd have tossed it aside. Oh, he'd have taken a perfunctory stab at the first few chapters. He'd have dipped a bit into the middle and the end. He'd have come up with some politic way to let the woman down easy. Some way to be kind.

It's what he'd usually do, but it's not what he's doing.

It's getting on to the wee hours of the morning and he's still tackling it in order. He's flipping back and forth and making notes. He's trying to keep it afloat.

Because he only _kind of_ wishes it were terrible. He only kind of wishes he could give it up as hopeless.

But he's kind of rooting for it, too.

He grinds the heels of his hands against his eyes and leans as far back as his chair will go. It's a mistake. He can see the whole desk from here. He can see the height of the piles. What he's gone through what there is left yet. The thing is epic and he's _tired._

He's well and truly tired, but something won't let him push back from the desk entirely. Something has him shifting in the chair to ease feeling back into his butt. Something keeps his fingers turning the next page and the next. Something keeps his pen moving.

It's professional curiosity. It's partly that.

It's not _bad _and he kind of wishes it were. He's read bad before. He's read irredeemable. From aspiring acquaintances. From the one or two friends who don't retreat absolutely when things are professionally at their worst. From rivals in print.

In some ways, this is worse than bad, even accounting for the fact that it's not his thing at all.

The plot's been done, of course, and some of the dialogue is downright painful. The references are dated and the settings are unlikely. It's mannered and clunky and constantly breaks the _Show, Don't Tell_ rule.

But even with all that there's something appealing about it. The heroine has a spark he likes and there's a kind of writing between the lines that works. There's some sympathetic chord she strikes—Oona _and_ her would-be leading lady. Although Coriander? Really? That name has _got_ to go.

He's read her reviews. He grew up to their constant recitation. The book has the stiff backbone and stodgy, imperious cadence that are the hallmarks of her smart, biting, rarely-off-the-mark criticism.

It's a textbook demonstration that literary talent does _not _necessarily translate from one medium to the next. She's a more than capable writer, and that's exactly what makes it almost worse than bad.

And it's part of what makes him root for it, too. He likes the idea of her pulling it off. Of someone brave enough to reach like this. To go after something new. Something old that they've wanted and wanted. To take exactly this kind of leap and stick the landing.

He wants it to work better than it does. He wants it to work as well as he thinks it could with the right help.

He doesn't want to be the right help. And he does. But he probably just isn't. It _really_ isn't his thing . . .

He riffles a few pages ahead, hoping he can talk himself into bed at the next chapter break. God knows when that might be, though. He jots a note about pacing and act structure. He thumbs a few more desperate pages on and tries not to whimper.

There's dialogue and more dialogue and yet more dialogue. Endless passages full of preachy relationship exposition. It's almost enough to talk him into bed right then and there, but the chapter ends on something else. Something he's drawn to.

It's just a short paragraph. Two hundred words or so of description. It tugs his gaze and his hand moves to cover everything around it. To block out everything except this different piece.

At first he thinks it's like nothing else he's read so far. That it stands alone. His pen is poised to mark, and he welcomes the heavy feeling of relief that there's something—finally _something_—he can praise. Something concrete and promising he can point out for her to build on. Something kind that will fulfill his promise and make all of this someone else's problem.

He reads it over again. The language has an unusual, clumsy kind of elegance to it. It's filled with short, effortless phrases that light up the page. That's exactly it. There's a kind of light, even though the scene is set in a claustrophobic stock room.

The heroine hums to herself and gradually realizes she's hearing distant music. It draws her through the empty aisles to the store's plate glass windows overlooking the street. Her voice rings out on the song's final phrase. The street musician lowers his horn and tips his hat to her. It's a moment through a rain-spattered window and it's lovely.

He reads it over again and suddenly he's scrabbling back through the chapters. Through he pages he's already slogged through. His pen is busy. He finds more and more. That's the best of them so far, but the moment isn't alone. He finds a sentence here. A bit of dialogue there. Things that altogether aren't just good, they're . . . transcendent. Dreams that lift up from the page and twine around him.

Exactly that. The book is her dream and when she's not thinking so hard—when she's not hell bent on crafting—she lends its light to her heroine. The grace of want. The perfect image of the mind's eye in the moment before speech.

He buzzes with the realization. The thread is there. The thing that's had him rooting for this all along and there's a thrumming sense of accomplishment in having found it. In scouring the pages again and teasing it out: The dream. It's her dream and he wants her to have it.

_Someone should_.

The thought brings him back down to earth with a thump.

He caps his pen. He neatens the edges of two epic stacks and squares his notepad at right angles to them both.

He tips back in the desk chair and laces his fingers together over his eyes.

_Someone should._

* * *

She goes through the motions of the evening. She eats something and forgets what it was. She sets the few housekeeping things that have gotten away from her to rights. She starts sorting the mail, but the sheer number of things that need tossing depresses her, and she feels restless.

Not exactly restless. Wasteful. Ungrateful.

Her mind is on the case.

It's on him, too.

It's always on him, but the case is making a run at her sideways and her mind is on it. On opportunities gained and lost. A life squandered and another made from the terrible ruins.

She hates Lynchberg with disquieting vehemence. She hates that it wasn't even about covering his own ass. It wasn't about regret or fear or salvaging his own sorry life. It was about taking hers. Stealing Odette's life from Barbara, and it's twisted, but that's how she sees it: Stealing.

She hates Odette, too. She wasn't _using_ it. That life. That privilege and all those opportunities. She wasn't using it, and Kate hates her for that. She hates the way she gathered disposable people around her. Barbara and Lynchberg, too.

She hates that Odette's story was the one that had five million people tuning in every week. She hates that it was all a lie. That there was no turnaround. No chance for redemption, whether she'd have taken it or not.

She hates that it was never about Barbara and her dream. That without Odette—without that improbable string of coincidence and tragedy—Barbara would probably still be working in a strip club. She'd still be on-again-off again with Jason or some loser like him. She'd still be alive and not a single step closer to her dream. Not without the life that Odette wasn't using anyway.

It nags at her. It has her mother on her mind, too, and she's tired. There's some lesson in it all that she's not quite up to learning yet. Not right now. But it nags at her.

She feels restless.

She's not Odette. She's not Barbara. But her scar pulls and aches and she's lonely or as good as. She feels like she might as well be. She wonders if there's someone else out there who'd make better use of her life. Someone braver and less broken. Someone who doesn't complicate what looks pretty simple in the middle of the night. Someone who would reach for all the things she thinks she could probably have. She knows she could have.

She feels wasteful.

The night crawls by. It's not exactly early, but she's not ready to face the fact that she probably won't sleep tonight.

She has a dozen things she could do, even at this time of night. There's laundry and emails she should have returned or done something about a long time ago. Things for Burke and this week's session that she'll put off until the last minute like she always does.

She drifts around the apartment, picking things up and putting them back until she finds herself with her guitar in her hands. She sinks down on the edge of the chaise, and it feels right. It feels right until she grabs a chord and brushes her thumb down the strings.

It's out of tune and worse. She hasn't touched it in months, and the strings' coating crumbles and flakes under her touch. She'd change them, but the tuning machines will barely turn either way and she's afraid what the sudden shift in tension will do to the neck.

She feels the strong curve of the bowed body hard against her thighs and it's all a sudden weight in her lap. It feels like yet another thing she's wasted and she's mournful, all out of proportion to a predictably out-of-tune guitar.

She bends over it. She folds herself around it in an awkward embrace and the scent of the wood takes her. She feels the cool smoothness of the solid top and she's overrun by memory.

She wasn't supposed to buy it. She certainly couldn't afford it, especially given that she'd driven her mother so close to crazy around that time that her parents had decided she could take on the bulk of her own expenses. She can't even remember why then or why this guitar—she didn't know a damned thing and she'd overpaid terribly for it—only that she _had _to have it.

She runs the backs of her fingernails across the strings near the bridge. She gets perverse pleasure from the dissonant plinking and the vibration of the body under her cheek. It reminds her of Madison.

She remembers then. The two of them sneaking off to some secret show with lousy fake ids that no one looked twice at. She can't remember the band—can't even remember what kind of music—only the pumped up, alive feeling. The bass thumping in her chest for hours afterward and the feeling that no one who hadn't been there could possibly get it. They'd agreed that night. She and Maddie. They had to play. They were going to be rockstars.

She remembers learning her first three chords and the eternity it took to move from one to the other. She remembers dead strings under numb, clumsy fingers. The impossibility of doing anything else and still strumming in time. She remembers trying to teach Maddie to sing harmony. Play the bass. Shake a tambourine. Do _anything._ But she was absolutely hopeless.

She plinks the strings again and laughs. They probably should have thought of it. That Maddie was hopeless at anything musical and she wasn't more than a few steps away.

"Probably should've thought of that," she says aloud. She sets the guitar gently back on its stand and traces the outline of the headstock with a fingertip. "You never do when you're dreaming."

The word lances through her. The sound of it in her ears and the feel of it on her tongue.

Her mind isn't on the case anymore. It's not on Odette or Barbara. It's not on Maddie or the Kate that might have been.

She didn't ask. He did.

She replays the scene in her mind. The slight hesitation and the casual tone. Fake casual. Not even _good _fake casual, now that she thinks about it.

She sees him reaching up. Reaching past her for a photo and the board shaking as he grounded his hand against it. She hears the slight hesitation and sees the nervous worry in his sidelong glance. Worry that she'd snap. That she'd shut him down and draw back again. _Again._

He asked, and it's stupid, but she's grateful. It warms her from the ground up that he _asked_.

No one ever does. She's been this one thing for so long. She's only let the world see this one thing. A ruthless arrow arcing from her mother's murder to the moment that she ends it. That she finds justice for her.

No one in a long time has wondered what she might have been—who she might have been—if it weren't for her mother's murder. Not even her, and she feels the smile she shared with him spreading over her face again. She feels sore, tired dreams shifting inside her. Creaking and dusty, but stirring. Stirring.

He asked and she wants to ask him. Now. She wants to know.

She looks at the clock and it's late. It's just the right time.

She wants to ask.

She flops over the arm of the couch and grabs for her phone.

_Time Out._

* * *

He's up and down. Tired, but not sleepy. Bored and lonely and looking for something, but he just can't face any more of the book right now. He's glad enough that he's kept his promise and he gives up on it.

He gives up on the book. For the moment, anyway.

He has something to give to Oona. A kindness for his mother to take to her, and he's glad about that.

He's tired and feeling sorry for himself, but he's absently glad to be able to do it. Able to string dream to dream and help them along, even if they belong to someone else.

Even if it's the middle of the night and his own dreams feel improbable and far away, he's glad.

He thinks about his mother and smiles. He thinks about her school. The studio. Her dream. He likes her for it.

He loves her, obviously. In their strange, combative way, they love each other, and he knows he's lucky. It didn't take knowing Kate to realize that. Thunderstorms in the living room and all, he's lucky to have her. To have the chance to like her, too, and he does.

He likes her dream. He likes what it says about her.

He grew up with her frustrations. Her vanities and foibles. Endless preening over leads and despair when they wanted her for a supporting role, however meaty. The soaring heights of glowing reviews and the black depths of anything from lukewarm on down. He grew up with that, and however much he's always loved her, none of it was easy to like.

Oona was wrong, though. His mother is good at what she does. She always has been, though it hasn't always been easy to admit it. She's talented and works hard and he's seen her do great things. He's seen her transform herself. Transform a room full of people and make them believe impossible things.

She's always good. She's often great, and the school isn't some kind of late-in-life scrabbling for relevance. It's not his mother on the sinking ship of her own career. It's not her clinging to something and not going gently into that good night. Or it's more than that, anyway. More than just that.

It's a dream. It reaches back into her past and pulls something forward. Something good that didn't didn't just rise up new in an instant.

He knows he's lucky. He's watched her work. With her students. With contractors and designers, and he knows it's a dream she's had for a long time. Maybe always. Passing on her gift. Shaping and shepherding. And, yes, bullying, too. It's a Martha Rodgers dream, after all. There's a certain amount of wedging her own approaches into the next generation and relishing the chance to reminisce to a captive audience. But it's a dream just the same and he likes her for it.

He likes the long, winding thread through her life. Her first love and possibility rising up from that in unexpected ways. He likes the path of the notion from him to Kate to his mother and back to her again. The way dreams wander among them and make him feel closer to her. To both of them.

He's sorry for Chet. For his life cut short. He wonders about the hard mercy of the man's end coming when it did. He wonders if Chet would've fought for his dream if it hadn't. If he'd have fought for her and for them and what might have happened.

He wonders if it's better this way. Not just for his mother, but for Chet, too.

He doesn't like that thought at all. He hates it, but he can't ignore the possibility. That it might have been kinder for him to die with hope in his heart. That everything Chet felt would never have been enough. That it couldn't have kept his dream alive and it was kinder for him to die not knowing. Kinder that his mother never had to deliver that final blow.

It's hard. It's hard for him to think of good coming from bad like that. But it seems to. Over and over again, it seems to.

Kate was right about that. About dreams that crack and break someone wide open. About possibilities hiding in the wreckage. That it's not all bad.

It should be comforting. It should be something he likes. Hope for the hopeless. Possibility in the darkest hour.

But it depresses him. Right now, it depresses him. And it makes him angry.

It makes him angry because it it's not the only way. It might be true. It might not be all bad. To let go one dream and grab on to another might not be all bad. But it's not the only way. It shouldn't be the only way.

He's up and down. Glad about his mother and aching for broken dreams.

He's on the descent when he hears it. On a definite downslide when the chime startles him utterly. When it breaks him open wide in the best way. A complete surprise like that.

He topples one of his own piles. He mutters an apology to it as he drags his hands over the desk in search of the phone.

He comes up with it, grinning like an idiot. Grinning like he always does. It feels good. The tug of gladness against the downward slide.

He sends the message back. He doesn't have to look. _Time Out._


	2. Chapter 2

Title: Dawn Before the Rest of the World

W/C: ~6700, this chapter; ~10,700 total

Rating: T

Summary: "He is a fixed point. Steady and unwavering. But he's afraid, too. He's afraid, and so is she and that feels less and less like a reason not to dream."

Episodes: A TARDIS-verse two-shot set after "A Dance With Death" (4 x 18). References to Pandora/Linchpin (4 x 15 and 4 x 16), the Final Nail (3 x 15) and Knockout (3 x 24). See my bio for info on the TARDIS-verse. It's not a Dr. Who crossover or any kind of crossover.

A/N: Second and final chapter, as promised. Thanks to those of you who have stuck with this series.

* * *

"Yes: I am a dreamer.

For a dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight,

and his punishment is that he sees the dawn

before the rest of the world.

- Oscar Wilde

* * *

She feels like walking. She hopes he does, too. She has coffee to go. His favorite place, not hers. It's an offering, even though he'll do whatever she asks. He'll always do whatever she asks, but she feels like walking and she wants him to want it, too.

But just in case, an offering. One cream, two sugars.

It seems like him. The streets he's known all his life. Streets she's known all of hers. It seems like the right setting to draw him out. That's what she wants to do. She wants this to go both ways. She wants to know all of him, and she feels like walking.

It's safer, too. It's not just about the right setting, though she hopes it is. It's safer. The idea of walking next to him. The idea of turns to take and streets to cross. All of that to break something dangerous into pieces she can manage. Bite-sized chunks she _is _ready for. Dreams she's ready to hear about.

It's safer and she hates that a little bit. She hates that she thinks of it. That she still needs to think about it, even in the middle of the night. Even after all this time.

But it feels right, too, and she tries to let it go. The idea of what's safe and what's not.

He turns the corner, then. She sees him, and it's gone anyway. The idea that anything is safe. He's tired and smiling and he tips his head back like he likes the taste of the March wind. His hands are stuffed in his pockets and he's looking for her. He's eager and happy, and all of this is harder and easier at the same time. None of it's safe.

"Hi," he says, and it means _I love you_ like it does every time. Absolutely none of this is safe.

"Hi," she says back, and she hopes he knows. She's afraid he does, but she hopes so, too.

She tugs on his elbow. He grins and pulls his hand free of his pocket. She pushes the coffee into it and holds on, her palm at a right angle to the back. Her fingers curving over his thumb.

He swallows hard and says _Hi _again. He blushes, and it's her turn to grin.

She starts to apologize. It's a reflex at this point. It's how this usually starts out. It almost always starts with an apology.

She worries about fairness and whether it's just harder for him with every day not telling her. With every day they're not doing this. She worries that the things that feel easier are hers alone. So she starts with an apology, almost always.

It's not the worst thing, but it's not the best, either.

It's the crossroads where they come together. Her tentative regret and his reassurances. Her frustration meeting his gladness. His gratitude and her impatience. That she needs this. That she needs to do it this way. That it's the only way she can do this at all right now, and she hopes he doesn't mind too much. She hopes it's something, even if it's not what they both want. Even if it's still _not yet. _

She starts to apologize and stops. She's not sorry tonight.

She looks up at him. She smiles, and it feels new. It feels like something without sorrow. Like a dream she's ready to have.

He feels it, too. It hits him. He blinks and swallows and gives her a new smile of his own. Not his usual ready grin. The one that takes a while to make it all the way up to his eyes most of the time. It's new. It's slow and full and she thinks it might be a mirror. She hopes it is. She's happy. That's how happy she is. She hopes she looks it. It's a gift she'd like to give back, and she hopes he can see.

"Mind walking?" she asks.

"Yeah. _Yeah," _he says and the smile widens. She's not sure how, but it does, and she knows he feels like walking, too.

She holds out her hand. He takes it without a second thought. Like they do this all the time.

Maybe they do. Maybe from now on, they do.

* * *

He's chatty. Not in a good mood, exactly, but like he has a lot to say, right off the bat. Like he's picking up a conversation they were already having. About the book. Not his? Some other book. She's lost, but she listens. She just listens and wonders how often he feels like this. How many times he's been the one lost in the middle of the night. How many times he's held his tongue and followed anyway.

It takes him a few minutes to realize that she's lost. That she has no idea what he's talking about. That all of whatever this is happened after the corner came up too soon and they went their separate ways.

He laughs and backtracks. Explains in a few sentences, and then he's off again.

It weighs on her, though. Just for a second, it pulls her down. That he looked up to say something and she wasn't there. And it's not earth shaking. It's not some crisis and she didn't let him down, but she wasn't _there._ It weighs on her.

It weighs on her and then she decides not to let it. She decides that she's not going to waste tonight being sorry. She's not going to waste the moon and the streetlights and the hint of spring on the wind. She's not going to waste his hand in hers on regret. She wasn't there, but she's here now.

She falls back in step with him. Prods him with her elbow and pinches the skin between his thumb and index finger when he's mean, but laughs anyway. Mixed messages, but it's too much fun. _He's_ too much fun when he's cutting and bitchy and mean about someone who probably deserves it. It's fun and more than a little sweet to see how indignant he is on Martha's behalf.

And it's something more than sweet when he gets to what he really wants to say. What on his mind. What he looked up to tell her only to find that she wasn't there.

She glides by that. Tonight isn't for being sorry. She glides by it and takes it all in. This new mood. This new tone of voice and what he really wanted to say.

Some of it's familiar. Some of it is what she loves most about the middle of the night. She loves when he talks about his work and it's not slick. It's not some catchy oversimplification. Something packaged and polished that he's fed to a hundred reporters before.

She loves it. It's a dream come true for her. One from the early days. From the time before she knew him. When she only knew his words and she had her timid little fantasies about meeting him. Catching his attention at a book signing. Making him look up at her long enough to tell her something real about how he does what he does. About who he is.

It's a dream that's still coming true.

There's something new tonight. Right now, there's a current running through his voice that she doesn't recognize. Disjointed thoughts that are tough and frustrating, tumbling out of his mouth any which way, and she can tell he's annoyed. He's baffled and that's why he wanted her. Why he looked up to say something before. Why he's talking and talking and happy to walk wherever now. It's a mystery and he wants her help. Of course he wants her help, and she loves this.

He stops suddenly. He's right in the middle of something. A long, complicated idea about what works and what doesn't about the book, and she can tell he's not satisfied. There's the stubborn, childish crease in his chin. The one he gets when he's slow to work something out and he thinks everyone else has gotten there already.

He wants to know this. He wants her help figuring it out, but he stops.

His mouth stops and his body along with it. He still has her by the hand and she stops, too, just a few steps on. Enough to make the slack of his arm pull taut and swing her around to face him.

"Hey," he says. He sounds annoyed. A familiar ripple works its way along his jaw, and she knows it's not her. He's annoyed with himself. "I'm sorry."

She frowns. She's annoyed with him, too.

"No," she says. She steps up to him. Sets her coffee cup on his shoulder and braces to push up on her toes. She plants a hard kiss on his lips and drops back to her heels. "For what?"

He's flummoxed. The tips of his ears go red enough to see even by streetlight and he looks absolutely flummoxed. "No? Um . . . . which?"

It's a struggle not to kiss him again. He wears flummoxed well. She scowls at him instead. "You're not allowed to be sorry tonight."

"Ok?" He's blushing. He's still blushing, but he's laughing, too. "But . . ."

"You're not allowed to be sorry," she cuts in. She twines her arm through his and takes his hand again. Backwards and awkward, but what she wants right now. She wants to keep him close. She doesn't want him thinking he can get away. She nudges them forward. On to the next street. "But you can tell me what you _think _you have to be sorry about."

"Oh, I _can_?" He's only laughing now. The blush is gone and he's laughing.

She liked it better when he wasn't. When he was surprised at himself. At her. When he was talking and talking and not even sure what he was saying. When he was asking for her help. She misses that. She misses him with all his defenses down. She misses him from five seconds ago.

"Castle . . ." She doesn't mean to say it. She doesn't mean to blame him for being someone else. The more careful version he usually is. But it slips out and he hears it.

He drops his head to the side. His lips just brush her hair and it's an apology. It's a forbidden apology, too, but she lets it go.

"Topic," he says quietly. "I'm supposed to let you pick a topic. I broke the rules."

She ducks her head against a smile. It's good. The new rules are good, but so are the old ones, and she can't help smiling.

"If I were allowed to," he continues. He's laughing, but he's embarrassed, too, and it feels just right. The perfect mix of the new and the usual. "If I were allowed to, I'd be sorry about that."

"Nothing to be sorry about," she says, and it's true. It's not just acknowledgment. She's not just accepting his apology, and she feels a rush of gladness about that. "You're already on it. What I would have picked."

He frowns up at the sky. Down at her. He screws up his face thinking about it and comes up empty. "Hackneyed novels by aging theater critics?"

"Dreams," she says firmly. _Bravely,_ she thinks to herself and then wonders why. She's not sure why she needs to be brave for this. She just suddenly knows she does. "What did little Rick Castle want to be when he grew up?"

It falls flat. It falls absolutely flat.

He doesn't want to answer. She can feel it in the sudden stiffness of shoulders. In the way he jerks his free elbow up to hide behind an almost-empty coffee cup. She hears it in the dismissive laugh he pitches low in his throat.

He doesn't want to answer, and it makes her sad. She's willing to be brave about it, but it makes her sad.

It has nothing to do with her. She knows that as surely as she knows that he doesn't want to answer. It's the locked down part of him. It's fear that has nothing to do with her. Or it didn't start with her, anyway.

She's not the first person to hurt him, and maybe not even the person who's hurt him the most. She wouldn't put money on that last part. Not at all, but the locked down part of him isn't her fault any more than he's responsible for hers.

But it makes her sad anyway. It all makes her sad.

He doesn't want to answer, but he does. He makes a start, at least. For her. For them, maybe. He makes a start, and she can't tell if it's better or worse.

"Dreams," he says. It's not that casual. He's not trying to make it sound like it is, and that feels like something. That he's not lying to her face, anyway. "Oh, just the usual."

"Spy?"

She means it to be a joke. Something light. An out for him. For both of them, maybe, because she feels like this is going wrong.

"Well, _obviously _spy," he says. That's light. Genuinely. It's happy and amused. A good memory and not at all the false thing she came up with. But it's only a moment. A brief pulse of something that goes quickly and then his shoulders sag and it's gone.

"Obviously spy," he repeats. "But that wasn't a dream."

"It doesn't count," she snaps before she even realizes she was going to say anything at all.

He blinks down at her, surprised.

She hears it again. Vehement denial from her own mouth, and she's not even sure what it's about. "It _doesn't_."

He looks at her for a confused moment, then nods. He's sure. He looks sure, anyway.

"Sophia." He drops his head. Shakes it a little, like it's almost too heavy. "No, that's not . . . I didn't mean . . . "

It starts out sheepish and becomes something darker. Something more wounded and she _is _sorry for that.

It hurts. Everything about that hurts and she's nowhere close to over it yet. She's not over that woman at all. She's not over her using him. Holding a gun to his head and almost drowning them both. She's not over the fact that she had him. She had him and threw it away. Threw _him _away.

It hurts him, too. She thinks about how all of it ended. The two of them together and that felt like enough. She feels foolish now. Foolish for thinking it could have been enough.

For her, it felt like enough. She was raw and angry from it all, and where they ended it felt like all she could take. Blithe wondering. Hypotheticals and their shoulders brushing together.

But she sees it now. Nothing like enough. An after work drink and another corner where he turned one way and she turned the other.

It hurt him and she let him down. She's been letting him down ever since. She didn't ask and she wasn't there.

"I'm sorry," she says simply and he surprises her. He's always doing that.

"Not tonight, Kate." He lets go her hand and slides his arm around her shoulders. He leans his head against hers and pulls in the start of a sigh. "It's a good idea. Let's not be sorry tonight."

"Ok." It sounds blank and wooden in her ears, but he lets the sigh out and he feels looser next to her.

He tilts his chin at her coffee cup. Shakes his own to show it's empty and steers them close enough to the curb that he can toss one after the other into a trash can. He keeps his arm around her. Reaches across with his free hand and grabs the fingers he'd only just surrendered.

"The spy thing wasn't a dream," he says after a few quiet minutes. She's surprised. She thought he'd drop it. She's more than willing to let him at this point. It's a disaster. She feels like it's all a disaster, but he goes on. He's brave, too.

He doesn't want to answer and she hears the strain underneath, but he goes on. "It was never a dream. It was a fantasy."

"What's the difference?" It sounds like more of a challenge than she means it to. She's curious. She doesn't doubt him. This is his territory. She doesn't know the first thing about any of it.

"Fantasy is . . . unicorns and demons and the Loch Ness Monster . . ."

"All of which you _believe_ in, Castle." She laughs a little. The strain is still there but he's taking them on a journey the way he does. He's turning them this way and that and finding somewhere they can walk together again, and it's easier. It's a little easier.

"Point taken." He bumps her shoulder in acknowledgment as they turn a new corner. "But that's just it . . . a fantasy is something you can believe in. You can want it to be real, but you might not ever see it with your own eyes. You can want it to be true, but you might not be able to make it happen."

She's not sure she likes the answer. It sounds like a warning. She's afraid of what it might mean. Afraid that she might not want to hear any more. She might not, but she's the one who asked, and she owes it to him to listen.

"And you couldn't have made it happen? You couldn't have been a spy?"

"Not in a million years," he says. It's rueful, but not really sad. "Terrible at languages. Not great at lying outside of a poker table . . . "

"You're not great at lying _at _a poker table," she mutters.

He ignores that. The corner of his mouth quirks up, but he goes on " . . . and you may have noticed I can be clumsy."

She snorts. It's too much. She's too relieved that it's _not _a warning. He doesn't mean anything by it. There's no weight or hidden message. Fantasy versus dream—it's a real distinction in his mind and not some kind of resignation. He still believes. He still dreams and so does she.

"I _may _have noticed."

She smiles wide and he grumbles at her.

"Did you drag me out in the middle of the night just to be mean to me, Beckett?"

"I didn't _drag _you out at all!"

He doesn't mean anything by that, either. He's not accusing her of anything, and she knows that.

But she feels like saying it. She's relieved and they're both brave and neither one of them is not apologizing tonight. She feels like saying it. That he wants to be here and she wants to be here. Tonight and all the nights like this before.

He looks down at her, eyes wide with surprise, and she looks back. Defiant. She's saying it.

He stops them. He pulls her into the crook of a building, just to one side of a crumbling chimney. He presses her into the brick and kisses her.

It's new. It's a declaration and a demand. He's saying something, too. He's telling her two can play at whatever game this is.

"You didn't," he breathes. He drags his eyes open and studies her, intent and full of meaning. It's not a game. It's not a game at all. "You didn't drag me. Not once."

She nods. She kisses him back. She breathes in time with him and feels the safe, heavy lines of him against her. She takes a leisurely tour of his mouth, all coffee and spring and something new. She buries her hands in his hair, and it all feels so easy.

She wonders where they are. She has no idea. She's long since lost track, but the thought crosses her mind that she could take him home. She's never seen this street. Can't recall it if she has, but home doesn't feel far.

He kisses her again. He's closer. Somehow closer to her, and his teeth snag her lower lip. His tongue is rough and searching and she wonders wildly what audience he's playing to. If there's a bad guy she's forgotten about. A bad guy he's trying to convince. She wonders giddily if she's the bad guy. If he is. If anyone here needs more convincing.

His fingers slip inside coat. Under her shirt collar and against her skin. He kisses her and she knows he's thinking it, too. That he could take her home. That she could be ready and they could have this.

It all feels so easy tonight. With the winter and the end of a terrible year behind them, it feels easy, and maybe they could _have _this.

He breaks the kiss on something that isn't quite a question. A soft, searching exhalation as he leans into her.

His eyes fall closed and he looks young and old at the same time. He looks vulnerable. He's afraid of this. What they're doing tonight and what they've been doing all these months. He's afraid of what it means and what it doesn't mean. She knew that. She's been telling herself that all night. All along. He's afraid, and she's not ready for that.

It helps to know that he's afraid and it doesn't. She knows she's not ready for his fear on top of her own. She's not ready, so she lets the dream go. That particular one. For now. Just for now.

She kisses him one last time. She presses her palm to his face and wills a promise into it. His eyes flutter open. He nods. His forehead against hers, he nods, and she thinks he knows.

She hopes he knows.

* * *

They walk. Her hand in his and their feet landing side by side, solid on streets that are strange and familiar all at once. She doesn't know where they are and she doesn't think he does either. It's a somewhere strange, but the streets are all the same in the middle of the night.

They're quiet, but it's ok. It's comfortable. She thinks they won't talk any more. She makes her peace with it.

She thinks this is as much as they can have for tonight, and she might be sorry if she were allowed. But she's not allowed, so she's not. She's not sorry, and the lump in her throat doesn't mean anything.

"You could guess."

He says it suddenly, but she knows it only sounds that way to her. She knows he's been thinking about it a while. She knows from the shy, cautious undertone. Something from the past. From the gawky teenager who didn't really dream of being a spy.

She doesn't know _how _she knows, but she does.

"I don't know," she finds herself saying.

She's not sure he really wants her to guess. She's not sure that this isn't just something she's asking of him. It is. She's asking and she wants to know, but it hardly seems fair. She wants him to want it, too, but she's not at all sure he does.

"I haven't done too well so far."

He squeezes her fingers. Hears something in her voice she wishes he didn't. Uncertainty. Forbidden regret. Whatever it is, she wishes weren't there. She'd like to do this over. She'd like to do it all over and ask about anything but dreams.

"Spy wasn't a real guess." He says after a while. He shakes his head with a little smile. Something playful, even if it's quiet. "I won't even count it against your three."

That sounds like him. Sly and trying not to smile. Failing. It sounds like he wants her to guess.

"I only get three now?"

"It's traditional," he points out. "But if you need a handicap . . ."

"Writer!" She dives in. "Trick question. You always wanted to be a writer."

"No!" He laughs, but it trails off. He thinks about it. Like he realizes suddenly the answer isn't quite true. "Well, maybe. Probably?"

"So that's _one_ dream." She flashes him a triumphant smile. Laughs when he scowls back at her.

"I said maybe." He looks at her out of the corner of his eye. "It's not something you say out loud or even let yourself think as a kid. A teenager."

She thinks about it. She's done her fair share of swooning over writers and poets. She's still swooning, she supposes_. _She's curious. "Why not?"

He gestures with his free hand. With their joined hands. He's uncomfortable.

"Oh . . . you know. Stupid shit kids think. The things they say. Not exactly smart to admit to have having any kind of feelings at all, let alone commit them to paper. That kind of weakness . . . It's worse at boarding schools. Or bad, anyway."

She nods. Has a sudden memory of a broom closet. Someone she knew stuffed inside and sobbing. Not a friend, exactly, but someone she knew and liked. A boy whose name she's forgotten even though she remembers the things he wrote. She remembers walking by and pretending she didn't hear.

She nods and the memory makes her ashamed, but she's still curious.

"You started then, though. Damien Westlake . . ." The name is out before she can stop it. She winces and wonders how many more ways she can hurt him before the sun rises. "You were young," she finishes quietly and hopes he knows that she's not apologizing for him.

"I started then. I couldn't do anything else. Hopeless at sports. I liked to play, but . . ."

"Clumsy," she offers in a stage whisper.

"So _mean!_" He lifts her knuckles and brushes a kiss over them.

"So you wrote?" She tugs their hands down again. Urges him on.

"I had to do something. I wasn't the kind of kid who could just keep my head down. Fly below radar. So I had to find something that could be my thing."

"Survival," she says.

It's hard to imagine. It's not the kind of trouble she ever really had. It's hard to picture him having it. Now, anyway. Everyone likes him. It's annoying how much everyone likes him right away.

She hangs it all on a rougher version of him, though. Someone smaller and more awkward with no locked down place to keep things. She pictures the constant commentary in a different mouth. The way every fleeting thought makes its way out of when he's not careful. She sees how it would have been on the new kid—the awkward one with the wacky mother. No real money and no family at all by upper-crust New York standards. She sees it, then.

"Survival," he agrees and there's a hard twist to his mouth. "School's funniest kid, right?"

She stiffens and it's his turn to wince. There's so much about that night that ties her tongue. Anger she can't let go of, even though she's been trying for months. It ties her tongue.

"Kate . . ." he says quickly.

It's desperate and sorry and she's furious. At him. At herself. At 48 hours she's played over and over in her mind and never figured out what either of them could have done that would have made a difference.

She's impatient. She's _annoyed_. She pinches his hand. Hard.

"No apologies."

"_Ow!_"

It carries. The sound carries. There's a drunken echo from something—someone—heaped on a bus stop bench. A dog objects from a window a few floors up and a neighbor follows. A stubborn window frame screeches and security bars rattle. The drunk on the bench yells, and it's chaos.

They stop. They stare wide-eyed at each other for a long second, then they're running. He's tugging her around the corner and she's shoving at his back. They put a block between them and the incident. He's puffing and red. Laughing and stumbling against her. She tugs on him now, and they lapse into an easier, wandering pace, shoulders brushing. Laughter slowly dissipating and the heaviness gone for now.

"No apologies," she says again. She circles the tip of her thumb over his skin. He's going to have a bruise, but she's not exactly sorry. "So, it worked. Writing. You survived."

"I survived." He chews it over. Comes to some conclusion that surprises him. "It helped. I didn't let myself think about it that way. I didn't think it was something I could _be_. Even when I was awake for weeks on end writing the first book, I told myself I was just . . . passing the time. Surviving. I kind of . . . kept it out of the corner of my eye even when I was in college. Even when I was sending it off and trying to live through the rejection letters. It was a long time before I thought of it as something that I could be . . . that I was. But writing always helped. It always felt right."

"But it wasn't your dream," she finishes.

"Not my dream," he agrees with a barely hidden smile. "Two more guesses."

"That wasn't really a guess," she says testily. "And I wasn't _wrong_."

He laughs. He brings their hands up and presses the tight knot to his chest. "Oh, Beckett. You're taking advantage. I'd let you cheat all night, and you're taking advantage."

"Shut up." She thumps the center of his chest. Pulls their hands back down between them and thinks.

She kind of hates him right now. She has to guess and he knows it. He engineered it, and she kind of hates him for stranding them in these dangerous waters. For not taking the out and not letting her. She hates him a little and loves him a little more.

Her mind comes back to it. The original question and she thinks about her own answer. She thinks about the question. The way he asked it. She knows the rules now. The way he's thinking. The way she was, even though she didn't realize it.

She told him her dream, but a real one. Something solid. Not a rockstar fantasy. Not rebellion and impossibility. She gets the distinction now. She knows the rules and more.

She knows the answer.

She blinks up at him, surprised.

"What?" He looks at her, and his eyes skitter away immediately. "_What?" _

She hasn't said anything. She hasn't given her guess, but it's like he knows. It's not a guess. It's the right answer, even if she can't quite believe it.

"You wanted to be an actor?"

It doesn't come out the way she wanted it to. There's no flourish. No little hint of teasing to lighten things. It's incredulous. It tastes like meanness, flat and stale. Like it's the most improbable, ridiculous thing in the world. But she's surprised. She's just _surprised,_ that's all. She drops his hand.

She burrows against him. She slides her arm around his waist and buries her cheek against his side. She tries again. "You wanted to be an actor."

"I wanted to be an actor." He's trying not to squirm. He has her fitted tight against him like he can hide it that way.

"Did you . . . did you try?" She grimaces. She hates every single thing about her voice, but she's just so _surprised._ She wants to sit him down. She wants to ask him a million questions, but she's afraid they might both go up in flames.

He's blushing, she can feel the sudden heat all through his body and every question leaves her. She can't imagine how he's standing it. She wants to let him off the hook, but he laughs then. He's blushing, but he laughs.

"I tried. A few things." He winds his arm a little tighter around her and whispers. "All-girls school on the campus behind Edgewick."

She laughs. She's relieved. Ashamed that she's relieved. _He's_ letting _her_ off the hook, and that isn't how this was supposed to go. She stumbles on anyway.

She stumbles in the direction he takes her, even though she hates it. She doesn't want to joke about this. She wants to know. But she stumbles on. "So that was your _real _dream. Rick Castle: Defiler of virgins."

"Fantasy, maybe." He lets out a low chuckle like he's remembering. "Not many defilement opportunities."

She wants to be there with him. In the memory. She wants to know what it was like to be him back then. She wants to see that locked down place and know him now. What hurts and what makes him happy. She wants to know, but she's doing this so badly. She's done everything so badly tonight. She stays quiet.

She stays quiet, and he tells her anyway.

Not long after he tells her in a voice so low she can hardly hear it over the hum of distant traffic. "I really wanted it."

"What happened?" she asks softly.

It stumps him. He blinks down at her. He doesn't know how to answer, and she wonders if it's too simple or too complicated.

She thinks about her own dream. She thinks about dissolution. Every turn was simple. Leaving Stanford. Changing majors. Trying for the academy. Every single thing a simple choice. But it's complicated, too. Where she is and the job she loves. How she got there is complicated and she wants to know how it was for him.

"Were you awful?" It just pops out. There's a smile that finally feels familiar, though. It feels right enough that she presses it against his shoulder and feels the lightness travel out of her and through him. "Were you terrible, Castle?"

His head falls back and he laughs again. Full on and with her, this time. He laughs and presses his cheek to the top of her head. "Worse. I was mediocre."

"Ouch!" She runs her hand along his waist, soothing.

"Yeah. Ouch," he says, and then more quietly, "It . . . I really wanted it. And it was so frustrating. I watched my mother do it. My whole life. And, little shit that I was, I thought _How hard can it be?_"

"Little shit," she agrees. "So then what? You gave up?"

"Then, I worked and worked . . ." He gives her a sharp look and bumps her hip with his. A preemptive protest, and she keeps her peace. "I worked, and every once in a while, I was better than mediocre."

"And it wasn't enough?" She's pushing. She might be pushing, but she thinks it's ok. She thinks they're far enough along. That he's a little lost in it, but he curls his fingers tighter around her shoulder like he wants her there with him. It might not be the locked down place, but it's in the neighborhood and he wants her there. "Every once in a while?"

"Oh, it was worth it. When it happened it was worth it."

She believes him. She can see it. The way even the memory transforms him. She feels it thumping in his chest. It's something she's only glimpsed before and now she wants to hold it tight. She wants to know how it's done.

"So?"

It's such a small word. Such a tiny question, but it's everything, too. It's huge and he struggles with it. He wants to tell her. He wants to explain it. How he went from one dream to the next.

"I never knew how I did it," he says finally. "I would work. I'd put everything I had into it, and sometimes . . . nothing. It was fine and nothing more. Other times, it was like going away. Like I was out of my body looking in at this other flesh and blood person and it was me, but it wasn't. It was better than good. But I never knew how I did it. Why it would go one way or the other. I couldn't make it happen."

"That's . . ." She trails off. She presses herself to him and he holds her tighter.

"Depressing?" He's smiling down at her, but his eyes aren't in on it. It _is_ depressing. He still feels the loss.

"Maddening," she says eventually. "To be able to do it sometimes . . . that would piss me off."

"Spoken like someone who's good at _everything_," he replies. "But, yes. Maddening's a good word for it. It's no coincidence that I killed a broadway actress in _A Hail of Bullets_."

"Not just mommy issues?"

His arm tightens around her again. He's surprised. Shocked, maybe, and she realizes it's another thing they don't talk about much. Parents—mothers and the way they're both defined by theirs, like it or not.

"Mommy issues." He grins. "That, too."

She's glad when he says it. Grateful that he's taking the risk. That he's willing to know everything about her. What hurts and what's ok. He's willing to help her find out for herself. She's grateful.

They wander a while longer, mostly in silence. They turn a corner and everything is suddenly familiar. They're a few blocks over from her place and the night is winding down.

She's . . . dissatisfied. She's all kinds of dissatisfied. She wants to know more. She doesn't want the night to end.

She wants take him home, but she won't.

She won't. She can't. She shouldn't.

Their feet slow exactly in time. An unspoken agreement. He's dissatisfied, too.

"Do you miss it? The other dream?" It pisses her off. His dissatisfaction and hers. The end of the night. She's not sure what the question has to do with it, but something . . . _something. _

He stops them altogether, thens. They're at her corner—at her doorstep all too soon—and he stops them. He turns to face her. He plants his hands on her shoulders and she thinks he's going to kiss her. She wants him to and she doesn't. His thumbs stroke down her neck and raise a shiver in both of them. They're dangerously close and she wants to take him home. But he doesn't kiss her.

"Do _you_?" he asks quietly.

It's a complicated question. It's heavy with so many things. She thinks she doesn't know how to answer it, but then she's shaking her head. It startles her. It takes her a second to realize why her hair is sweeping over her shoulder and the wind is shifting on her cheek.

The old dream represents so much. The world with her mother in it. A less broken version of herself. Or maybe just one that's broken in different ways. But she doesn't. She doesn't miss anything that keeps her from now. Here. This moment. She doesn't miss anything that leads away from him.

It's complicated. It's simple.

"No," she says. "I don't miss it. This is a better dream."

He smiles down at her, then, transformed. She tries to study it. The moment. Him. She tries to remember how it's done for next time, but then he's kissing her and she has no idea.

She has no idea at all, but she'll work at it.

She'll work at it.


End file.
